Summary
Highlights for Tuesday, 7 May 2019
Tuesday’s agenda at the 2019 meetings of the Conferences of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Convention (BRS COPs) was full, with delegates meeting in plenary to address a wide range of issues related to either the Basel or Rotterdam Conventions.In the morning, delegates dealt with initial discussions of two challenging and related issues under the Rotterdam Convention: non-compliance and evaluating the effectiveness of this Convention. While Article 17 of the Convention requires parties to develop and approve procedures and mechanisms for determining non-compliance “as soon as is practicable,” to date, consensus on this issue has been elusive. Previous meetings of the COPs have come close to agreement, and there is widespread support for creating a facilitative, non-punitive mechanism that will promote parties’ work to implement the Convention. However, exactly what this mechanism will look like is still subject to debate. For now, this discussion will take place in a newly-created Friends of the President group which will report back to plenary on Wednesday.Debates on effectiveness evaluation were equally challenging, with delegates discussing proposed amendments to the Convention that would, respectively, change decision-making rules to allow for voting, and mandate provision of financial and technical assistance for developing countries. The former amendment is designed to address a growing problem for the Convention: chemicals for which the COP has agreed all listing criteria are met, but consensus to list them in Annex III has not been reached. To date, four chemicals fall into this category, and demand is growing among delegates keen to ensure that the Rotterdam Convention is able to meet its objective to serve as a mechanism for information exchange. A contact group to tackle this and other aspects of effectiveness met throughout the day, and will report to plenary on Wednesday.For more details on the day's events and to hear what delegates said in the corridors, see our Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
IISD Reporting Services, through its Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) Meeting Coverage, provided daily web coverage, daily reports, and a summary and analysis report from the 2019 Meetings of the Conferences of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions. The summary and analysis report is available in HTML and PDF.
Photos by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth
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Plenary: Rotterdam Convention
Contact Groups
Civil Society Demonstration
Plenary: Rotterdam Convention
Around the Venue
